1996 in literature

See also: 1995 in literature, other events of 1996, 1997 in literature, list of years in literature.

Awards

• Booker Prize: Graham Swift, Last Orders
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Margaret Atwood: - Alias Grace
• See 1996 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: David Malouf, Remembering Babylon
• Nebula Award: Nicola Griffith, Slow River
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Karen Cushman, The Midwife's Apprentice
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska
• Prix Goncourt: Pascale Roze, Le Chasseur Zéro
• Prix Décembre: Régis Debray, Loués soient nos seigneurs: une éducation politique
• Prix Médicis French: Orlanda - Jacqueline Harpman and L'Organisation - Jean Rolin
• Prix Médicis International: Himmelfarb - Michael Kruger, Germany and Sonietchka - Ludmila Oulitskaïa, Russia
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Jonathan Larson, Rent
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Richard Ford - Independence Day
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham: The Dream of the Unified Field
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level